In a recent BioEssays paper [W. F. Martin, BioEssays 2017, 39, 1700115], William Martin sharply criticizes evolutionary interpretations that involve lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. Most published examples of LGTs in eukaryotes, he suggests, are in fact contaminants, ancestral genes that have been lost from other extant lineages, or the result of artefactual phylogenetic inferences. Martin argues that, except for transfers that occurred from endosymbiotic organelles, eukaryote LGT is insignificant. Here, in reviewing this field, we seek (...) to correct some of the misconceptions presented therein with regard to the evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. A recent paper dismisses claims of lateral gene transfer into eukaryotic genomes. We counter the arguments made in that paper and discuss the extensive evidence for LGT in eukaryotes. (shrink)

Philosophy has much to offer psychiatry, not least regarding ethical issues, but also issues regarding the mind, identity, values, and volition. This has become only more important as we have witnessed the growth and power of the pharmaceutical industry, accompanied by developments in the neurosciences. However, too few practising psychiatrists are familiar with the literature in this area. -/- The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry offers the most comprehensive reference resource for this area ever published. It assembles challenging and (...) insightful contributions from key philosophers and others to the interactive fields of philosophy and psychiatry. Each contributions is original, stimulating, thorough, and clearly and engagingly written - with no potentially significant philosophical stone left unturned. Broad in scope, the book includes coverage of several areas of philosophy, including philosophy of mind, science, and ethics. For philosophers and psychiatrists, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry is a landmark publication in the field - one that will be of value to both students and researchers in this rapidly growing area. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 26-28.

Biobanking, the large-scale, systematic collection of data and tissue for open-ended research purposes, is on the rise, particularly in clinical research. The infrastructures for the systematic procurement, management and eventual use of human tissue and data are positioned between healthcare and research. However, the positioning of biobanking infrastructures and transfer of tissue and data between research and care is not an innocuous go-between. Instead, it involves changes in both domains and raises issues about how distinctions between research and care are (...) drawn and policed. Based on an analysis of the emergence and development of clinical biobanking in the Netherlands, this article explores how processes of bio-objectification associated with biobanking arise, redefining the ways in which distinctions between research and clinical care are governed. (shrink)

This paper describes the change of emphasis that occurred in the teaching of ethics to small groups of clinical students. Although the original focus of the course was on the analysis of ethical dilemmas associated with individual patients known to the students, it soon became evident that there were, for the students themselves, more fundamental ethical dilemmas in their new role as clinical students. These included worries about how to respond when patients asked questions which their consultants had previously deceived (...) them about, worries about inflicting pain on patients, as with intravenous cannulation, and the role of the medical student in the clinical team. We emphasise the need to explore student experiences as part of the process of ethics teaching. (shrink)

Aworkshop was held August 26–28, 2015, by the Earth- Life Science Institute (ELSI) Origins Network (EON, see Appendix I) at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. This meeting gathered a diverse group of around 40 scholars researching the origins of life (OoL) from various perspectives with the intent to find common ground, identify key questions and investigations for progress, and guide EON by suggesting a roadmap of activities. Specific challenges that the attendees were encouraged to address included the following: What key (...) questions, ideas, and investigations should the OoL research community address in the near and long term? How can this community better organize itself and prioritize its efforts? What roles can particular subfields play, and what can ELSI and EON do to facilitate research progress? (See also Appendix II.) The present document is a product of that workshop; a white paper that serves as a record of the discussion that took place and a guide and stimulus to the solution of the most urgent and important issues in the study of the OoL. This paper is not intended to be comprehensive or a balanced representation of the opinions of the entire OoL research community. It is intended to present a number of important position statements that contain many aspirational goals and suggestions as to how progress can be made in understanding the OoL. The key role played in the field by current societies and recurring meetings over the past many decades is fully acknowledged, including the International Society for the Study of the Origin of Life (ISSOL) and its official journal Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres, as well as the International Society for Artificial Life (ISAL). (shrink)

Background: The division of non-paid labor in heterosexual parents in the West is usually still gender-based, with mothers taking on the majority of direct caregiving responsibilities. However, in same-sex couples, gender cannot be the deciding factor. Inspired by Feinberg’s ecological model of co-parenting, this study investigated whether infant temperament, parent factors (biological relatedness to child, psychological adjustment, parenting stress, and work status), and partner relationship quality explained how first-time gay, lesbian, and heterosexual parents divided labor (childcare and family decision-making) when (...) their infants were four months and 12 months old. We also tested whether family type acted as a moderator. Method: Participants were drawn from [MASKED FOR REVIEW]. Only those who provided information about their biological relatedness (yes or no) to their child (N = 263 parents) were included. When infants were four months (T1), parents completed a password-protected online questionnaire exploring their demographic characteristics including work status and standardized online-questionnaires on task division (childcare and family decision-making), infant temperament, parental anxiety, parental depression, parental stress, and partner relationship satisfaction. When infants were 12-months-old (T2), parents provided information about task division and their biological relatedness to their children. Results: Linear mixed models showed that no factor explained the division of family decision making at T1 and T2. For relative time spent on childcare tasks at T1, biological relatedness mattered for lesbian mothers only: biologically related mothers appeared to spend more time on childcare tasks than did non-related mothers. Results showed that, regardless of family type, parents who were not working or were working part-time at T1 performed more childcare tasks at T1. This was still true at T2. The other factors did not significantly contribute to relative time spent on childcare tasks at T2. Conclusion: We had the opportunity to analyze the division of non-paid tasks in families where parenting was necessarily planned and in which gender could not affect that division. Although Feinberg’s model of co-parenting suggests that various factors are related to task division, we found that paid work outside the home was most important during the first year of parenthood in determining caregiving roles. (shrink)

In the current paper, we re-examine how abstract argumentation can be formulated in terms of labellings, and how the resulting theory can be applied in the field of modal logic. In particular, we are able to express the (complete) extensions of an argumentation framework as models of a set of modal logic formulas that represents the argumentation framework. Using this approach, it becomes possible to define the grounded extension in terms of modal logic entailment.

Environmental ethicists have frequently criticized ancient Greek philosophy as anti-environmental for a view of philosophy that is counterproductive to environmental ethics and a view of the world that puts nature at the disposal of people. This provocative collection of original essays reexamines the views of nature and ecology found in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus. Recognizing that these thinkers were not confronted with the environmental degradation that threatens contemporary philosophers, the contributors to this book find that (...) the Greeks nevertheless provide an excellent foundation for a sound theory of environmentalism. (shrink)

An authorized, eminently readable translation of a work first published in German in 1957. Martin leads his reader into the problems of metaphysics by tracing the development of Plato's thought and Aristotle's criticism of Plato, focusing throughout on the question, "What is unity?" Although the book is introductory in intent and tone, it offers its own interpretation of Plato and Aristotle.--J. M. W.

Gap junction intercellular communication channels permit the exchange of small regulatory molecules and ions between neighbouring cells and coordinate cellular activity in diverse tissue and organ systems. These channels have short half‐lives and complex assembly and degradation pathways. Much of the recent work elucidating gap junction biogenesis has featured the use of connexins (Cx), the constituent proteins of gap junctions, tagged with reporter proteins such as Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) and has illuminated the dynamics of channel assembly in live cells (...) by high‐resolution time‐lapse microscopy. With some studies, however, there are potential short‐comings associated with the GFP chimeric protein technologies. A recent report by Gaietta et al., has highlighted the use of recombinant proteins with tetracysteine tags attached to the carboxyl terminus of Cx43, which differentially labels ‘old’ and ‘new’ connexins thus opening up new avenues for studying temporal and spatial localisation of proteins and in situ trafficking events.1 BioEssays 24:876–880, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

In his pioneering work of moral phenomenology, K. E. Løgstrup offered a phenomenological articulation of a central moment of ethical life: the experience in which “one finds oneself with the life of another more-or-less in one’s hands”. In such circumstances we encounter what Løgstrup calls simply the ethical demand. Løgstrup’s preferred formulation of the content of that demand is taken from the Bible: Love thy neighbor. This neighborly love is expressed in the form of spontaneous, selfless care for the other. (...) We shall have occasion in what follows to return to the content that Løgstrup associates with the ethical demand, but my primary focus here is not its content but its distinctive modality. Løgstrup specifies that modality in a fourfold analysis: the ethical demand is radical, silent, one-sided, and unfulfillable. My concern in what follows will be with the fourth element in this analysis – or what I shall refer to simply as Løgstrup’s unfulfillability thesis. My discussion addresses three specific questions: Is it coherent to suppose that the ethical demand is unfulfillable? Why does Løgstrup hold that the ethical demand is unfulfillable? What kind of response is appropriate in the face of an unfulfillable ethical demand? (shrink)

It is customary to identify transcendental philosophy as the distinctive and original invention of Immanuel Kant. Certainly this was a view that Kant himself did much to encourage. But this chapter argues that traces of the transcendental strategy can be found already among the ancients. One such ancient precedent is associated with the Stoic doctrine of oikeiosis. It is argued that oikeiosis is best understood as a form of normative orientation associated with 'being at home ' in one's body and (...) environment, and that it involves a distinctive form of ontological self-consciousness. This chapter assesses the merits of Stoic claims that oikeiosis figures as a condition on the possibility of desire, pleasure, and even perception, and the chapter considers the case for describing these arguments as examples of transcendental investigation. (shrink)

In 2014 the Essex Autonomy Project undertook a six month project, funded by the AHRC, to provide technical advice to the UK Ministry of Justice on the question of whether the Mental Capacity Act is compliant with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Over the course of the project, the EAP research team organised a series of public policy roundtables, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, and which brought together leading experts to discuss and debate (...) the issues. A one-day public conference was held at the Institute for Government in July. In September 2014, the EAP research team submitted its findings to the Ministry of Justice. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory is one of the most widely misunderstood and consistently rejected concepts in the whole of science. In Understanding Evolution, Kostas Kampourakis investigates the psychological dimensions of this popular discontent with evolutionary theory. At the heart of this persisting public disenchantment with the theory lies the thoroughly counterintuitive, even alien, nature of biological evolution. Historically, people have rejected evolution on religious, ethical, and existential grounds, but there is a psychological component to our aversion to evolution. It simply does not (...) resonate with human expectations about how the world should work. Kampourakis does an excellent job presenting evolutionary theory and summarizing the evidence for it. Ultimately, he argues that in spite of powerful emotional and instinctual forces arrayed against it, we have much to gain by allowing the evolutionary picture to enrich our understanding of the world. If we allow the full drama of the history of life on Earth to present itself to us, we can place ourselves within that drama and find ways to relate it meaningfully to our lives without psychological barriers mounted by disdain and discomfort. (shrink)

This paper undertakes an analysis of the distinctive forms of self-consciousness, self-representation and existential-therapeutic work characteristic of the ex-voto paintings in Mexican folk art, and examines the appropriation thereof in Kahlo's Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair.

BackgroundFor many decades, the debate on children’s competence to give informed consent in medical settings concentrated on ethical and legal aspects, with little empirical underpinnings. Recently, data from empirical research became available to advance the discussion. It was shown that children’s competence to consent to clinical research could be accurately assessed by the modified MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research. Age limits for children to be deemed competent to decide on research participation have been studied: generally children of 11.2 (...) years and above were decision-making competent, while children of 9.6 years and younger were not. Age was pointed out to be the key determining factor in children’s competence. In this article we reflect on policy implications of these findings, considering legal, ethical, developmental and clinical perspectives.DiscussionAlthough assessment of children’s competence has a normative character, ethics, law and clinical practice can benefit from research data. The findings may help to do justice to the capacities children possess and challenges they may face when deciding about treatment and research options. We discuss advantages and drawbacks of standardized competence assessment in children on a case-by-case basis compared to application of a fixed age limit, and conclude that a selective implementation of case-by-case competence assessment in specific populations is preferable. We recommend the implementation of age limits based on empirical evidence. Furthermore, we elaborate on a suitable model for informed consent involving children and parents that would do justice to developmental aspects of children and the specific characteristics of the parent-child dyad.SummaryPrevious research outcomes showed that children’s medical decision-making capacities could be operationalized into a standardized assessment instrument. Recommendations for policies include a dual consent procedure, including both child as well as parents, for children from the age of 12 until they reach majority. For children between 10 and 12 years of age, and in case of children older than 12 years in special research populations of mentally compromised patients, we suggest a case-by-case assessment of children’s competence to consent. Since such a dual consent procedure is fundamentally different from a procedure of parental permission and child assent, and would imply a considerable shift regarding some current legislations, practical implications are elaborated. (shrink)

One of the most robust findings in psychopathology is the fact that specific phobias are more prevalent in women than in men. Although there are several theoretical accounts for biological and social contributions to this gender difference, empirical data are surprisingly limited. Interestingly, there is evidence that individuals with stereotypical feminine characteristics are more fearful than those with stereotypical masculine characteristics; this is beyond biological sex. Because gender role stereotypes are reinforced by parental behavior, we aimed to examine the relationship (...) of maternal gender stereotypes and children’s fear. Dyads of 38 mothers and their daughters were included. We assessed maternal implicit and explicit gender stereotypes as well as their daughters’ self-reported general fearfulness, specific fear of snakes, and approach behavior toward a living snake. First, mothers’ fear of snakes significantly correlated with their daughters’ fear of snakes. Second, mothers’ gender stereotypes significantly correlated with their daughters’ self-reported fear. Specifically, maternal implicit gender stereotypes were associated with daughters’ fear of snakes and fear ratings in response to the snake. Moreover, in children, self-reported fear correlated with avoidance of the fear-relevant animal. Together, these results provide first evidence for a potential role of parental gender stereotypes in the development and maintenance of fear in their offspring. (shrink)

For decades, the discussion on children’s competence to consent to medical issues has concentrated around normative concerns, with little progress in clinical practices. Decision-making competence is an important condition in the informed consent model. In pediatrics, clinicians need to strike a proper balance in order to both protect children’s interests when they are not fully able to do so themselves and to respect their autonomy when they are. Children’s competence to consent, however, is currently not assessed in a standardized way. (...) Moreover, the correlation between competence to give informed consent and age in children has never been systematically investigated, nor do we know which factors exactly contribute to children’s competence. (shrink)

This collection examines prevalent assumptions in moral reasoning which are often accepted uncritically in medical ethics. It introduces a range of perspectives from philosophy and medicine on the nature of moral reasoning and relates these to illustrative problems, such as New Reproductive Technologies, the treatment of sick children, the assessment of quality of life, genetics, involuntary psychiatric treatment and abortion. In each case, the contributors address the nature and worth of the moral theories involved in discussions of the relevant issues, (...) and focus on the types of reasoning which are employed. 'Medical ethics is in danger of becoming a subject kept afloat by a series of platitudes about respect for persons or the importance of autonomy. This book is a bold and imaginative attempt to break away from such rhetoric into genuine informative dialogue between philosophers and doctors, with no search after consensus.' Mary Warnock. (shrink)